Letters to the Editor, June 6

As a student in professor Craig Kabatchnick’s veterans law class at N. C. Central University’s School of Law, I am encouraged by his recent suggestion in a Letter to the Editor that Duke Hospital partner with the Veterans’ Affairs hospitals to help reduce the backlog of veterans awaiting appointments to be seen.
Every night I come home to read a new article quoting some disturbing statistical information pertaining to the long wait veterans face to get routine medical attention or perhaps even critical care. Why should veterans have to wait for their care when civilians don’t? Why should civilian healthcare be different or better than the care that we should be providing to people who have fought for our country?

The options available to our veterans are far too limited and our attention should be fervently focused on how to make it right. It is unacceptable for anyone in this area to take a back seat to this issue. Durham is brimming with medical talent and the Durham VA hospital sits in the middle of it, ripe for the picking in bringing help to those who truly need it.
A cooperation between North Carolina’s number-one hospital and an ailing VA would not only bring immediate relief to a very broken system, but would also give rise to opportunities for positive publicity for this area and bring real, potentially nationwide attention to such a worthwhile cause in helping our heroes. Dana Copeland
Durham

Four dead do matter

It seems Hillary Clinton has decided to embrace her vision of inequality along with a soft "punt" to the White House and a new book coming out citing political exploitation of four dead Americans.

Indeed, four dead Americans who were buried as expediently as the cover-up -- citing a video as what sparked the rise of American hatred -- of a dead ambassador to Libya and three young Americans whose lives ended brutally because an American president was in an election year. And what is more interesting is that Ms. Clinton would devote a whole book to defending an administration's botched plan with another election not far ahead.

Clinton dares to be as nasty as her boss, as we have seen how lightly this administration dismissed the death of four white dead Americans whose cries for help were ignored at the top. Clinton’s term as secretary of state ended in disgrace and resignation. She went before a congressional committee only to be praised by Democrats. The committee only wanted justice for these American heroes and closure for their families.

Clinton answered defiantly, "what difference does it make?" So much for disconnect in this administration. Clinton had the chance to tell the truth. Yet she maintained it was all about a video, proven not true by a separate bipartisan committee. Four dead Americans in Libya do matter, and nothing supersedes justice pending for the inequalities and irregularities of four white, dead Americans! Such has become the hallmark of this administration.

Margaret S. Hood

Durham

Good Samaritans at market

There were many good Samaritans at the Durham Farmers' Market on Saturday, when my husband and I were shopping there and I fell.

With a very grateful heart, I thank you. My husband told me there must have been at least six people who came to help us. Someone held our grocery bags so Bob could come to my aid; another went for a first aid kit and a doctor bandaged my lacerations; a bag of ice suddenly appeared, a chair was brought for me to sit on after I got up and became aware of what happened. I was handed a glass of water by someone else and another helped my husband get the car near to where I was sitting.